Category Archives: Smartphones

Ashlei Temena’s family trip to Disneyland last Thanksgiving break turned into a nightmare when her smartphone battery hit empty.
Temeña, a San Francisco support technician, had gotten separated from her family and realized she had no way to find anyone. Instead of riding roller coasters, she wandered around searching for the group — eventually locating them four hours later watching fireworks.“It sucked really bad,” Temeña said. “I wanted to throw my phone on the ground by the end of the day.”Many consumers can relate. Despite the leaps forward in mobile phone technology with crisp, clear screens and faster chips, batteries have made only sluggish progress. That has propelled a desire for longer battery life to the top of the list of factors considered by consumers when they purchase smartphones, according to a 2014 survey by the research firm IDC.So why is battery technology still underwhelming? Plenty of companies have been developing smarter battery technology for years, including methods to increase battery capacity tenfold or charge devices by pulling energy from the air. But lithium ion, the technology that most mainstream batteries are based on, is low cost and easily reproducible while being safe — so we’ll be stuck with it for the foreseeable future, said Charlie Quong, an executive at Mophie, a battery accessory maker, in an interview.“There’s a lot of investments on all fronts for improving the technology above and beyond that, but I don’t think we’re going to see that hitting any kind of mass market for several years out,” Quong said. In general, lithium ion improves about 10% a year in terms of the amount of energy that can be stored in a given space, which is partly why consumers perceive batteries as being far behind other technologies.With that backdrop in mind, here are seven biggest battery-saving myths.

Both Apple and Samsung this week predicted slow growth for smartphone and mobile phone sales in early 2016, making investors queasy.

Apple’s stock dropped 6.5% at Wednesday’s market close after CEO Tim Cook told investors he expects iPhone unit sales to decline for the current quarter compared to a year ago. Apple’s iPhones make up the majority of its revenues. Trading in Apple was flat this morning.

Samsung’s stock also dropped by 2.5% late in the day of Thursday trading after the South Korean company reported a 10% drop in mobile sales in the last quarter of 2015. The company said it would be a challenge to maintain operating profits for 2016.Continue reading Interest in smartphones is flattening→

TOKYO: Researchers in Japan have created a type of glass that is stronger than many metals and almost as strong as steel.

The researchers from The University of Tokyo and Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute used what they call aerodynamic levitation, to create glass imbued with extra amounts of an oxide of aluminium.

Glass that does not break when dropped or when struck by another object would be useful in a wide variety of applications, from automobile windows, to skyscrapers to smartphones and tablets.